Opinion

Boosting Islamabad-Manama relations

The continued to drump up trade and investment

Muhammad Zahid Rifat
By Muhammad Zahid Rifat
138

Pakistan enjoys very warm brotherly relations with all Gulf Cooperation Council members, which are embedded in history and religion. The GCC region has remained the most important pillar of Pakistan’s foreign policy. Pakistan has an abiding interest in geo-political, geostrategic and geoeconomic happenings and developments, positive or negative, in the region. Pakistan also enjoys well-established trade, defence and people-to-people ties with all regional countries.

Bahrain is one of the important countries in the GCC region. Pakistan and BahraIn have established a Joint Ministerial Commission at the Foreign Minister’s level to discuss all encompassing trade and economic ties, take agreed decisions and supervise implementation of these decisions. So far, five sessions of the JMC have been held, the last being in July 2021. In all fairness, Pakistan and GCC member countries represent not only continuity in their brotherly relations but also a strategically strengthening of an already time-tested relationship.

The PM has been undertaking visits to friendly, regional countries and even beyond around the globe quite frequently to seek more trade, investment from these countries in different sectors in Pakistan for stabilizing the national economy at the earliest possible. His productive visit to Bahrain as such augurs well, and hopefully prospective investors and businessmen from Bahrain will be visiting Pakistan in due course of time to explore possibilities of investment and joint partnerships here in different sectors

In this context, Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif’s recent two-day official visit to Bahrain quite obviously has assumed special significance.On reaching Manama to a warm welcome, the PM’s meeting with King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa was quite meaningful and productive as both sides after mutual discussions reaffirmed their commitment to further elevating the prevailing bilateral cooperation across sectors.

The PM and Bahraini King, during their in-depth bilateral discussions, reviewed the strength of their longstanding partnership and reaffirmed their commitment to further deepen bilateral ties grounded in shared faith and mutual respect. They reviewed the encouraging prevailing momentum in bilateral relations and agreed to broaden cooperation in the political, economic, defence and cultural fields.

The PM on this occasion reiterated Pakistan’s resolve to further enhance ties and expressed appreciation for Bahrain’s support in the establishment of King Hamad University in Islamabad and high;ighted his country’s keen desire to further expand trade and investment and was ready to advance bilateral trade under the GCC free trade agreement. He also thanked Bahrain’s leadership for continued hospitality to more than 150,000 Pakistanis residing in Bahrain and working in different fields.

While highlighting the significance of their longstanding defence cooperation, the two leaders agreed to further strengthen bilateral cooperation in technical training, logistics, manpower and defence production.

Economic cooperation between the two countries figured quite prominently in the talks in Manama as the visiting Pakistani leader met Bahrain’s Crown Prince and Prime Minister Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa and they reaffirmed their resolve to continue making sincere and committed efforts for further strengthening bilateral cooperation between the two brotherly countries. The PM praised Bahrain’s leadership for its role in strengthening bilateral relations and extended facilitation on the country’s election as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for two years. Highlighting the prospects for enhancing bilateral trade the PM stated that Pakistan was desirous of raising the current $500 million trade volume to $1 billion within the next three years. While reviewing defence and security cooperation, both the Pakistani and Bahraini leaders agreed to widen mutual cooperation in training, cyber security, defence production and information exchange.

While addressing the Bahraini investors and business leaders, the PM duly courted them with Pakistan’s sweeping economic overhaul blueprint and invited them to visit Pakistan and explore the opportunities available in the food security, IT, construction, mines and minerals, healthcare, renewable energy and tourism sectors.

It is worth mentioning here that the historical brotherly warmth in the bilateral relations between Pakistan and Bahrain have never been questioned at any level, the discussions in Manama between the visiting Pakistani PM and host Bahraini top leadership have quite appreciably and in a welcome way focused on further expanding bilateral trade, investment, defence partnerships and cultural ties, which obviously signalled a more future-oriented approach which hopefully was aligned closely with the sustainable development goals and economic cooperation of the top leadership of both Pakistan and Bahrain.

As mentioned by the PM during his bilateral discussions with the host Bahrain King, a pretty large number of Pakistanis are residing in Bahrain and positively contributing to strengthening Bahrain’s economy, and there is every possibility of exporting more manpower from Pakistan not only to Bahrain but the Gulf region on the whole as well. Pakistan and Bahrain quite expectedly can develop a collaborative framework for training Pakistani manpower in duly specified special fields. Presently, the Pakistani community in Bahrain includes doctors, engineers, bankers, businessmen as well as workers engaged in different fields.

Following its establishment, the Joint Ministerial Commission has so far been met only twice, the last time being in July 2021. For undertaking productive decisions for boosting, promoting and strengthening bilateral relations between Pakistan and Bahrain as agreed by the top leadership of both the countries, it is imperative that the Pak-Bahrain JMC should be activated and hold its sessions regularly, which would be mutually beneficial for both the countries and their people.

The PM has been undertaking visits to friendly, regional countries and even beyond around the globe quite frequently to seek more trade, investment from these countries in different sectors in Pakistan for stabilizing the national economy at the earliest possible. His productive visit to Bahrain as such augurs well, and hopefully prospective investors and businessmen from Bahrain will be visiting Pakistan in due course of time to explore possibilities of investment and joint partnerships here in different sectors.

Previous article
Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan in Jeopardy
Next article
The Machiavellian Politics of Pakistan
Muhammad Zahid Rifat
Muhammad Zahid Rifat
The writer is Lahore-based Freelance Journalist, Columnist and retired Deputy Controller (News) , Radio Pakistan, Islamabad and can be reached at zahidriffat@gmail.com

RELATED ARTICLES

138 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks for your helpful post. Over time, I have come to understand that the particular symptoms of mesothelioma are caused by the build up of fluid involving the lining of the lung and the chest muscles cavity. The infection may start inside chest area and get distributed to other parts of the body. Other symptoms of pleural mesothelioma include weight-loss, severe respiration trouble, nausea, difficulty ingesting, and swelling of the face and neck areas. It should be noted that some people living with the disease tend not to experience just about any serious symptoms at all.

  2. I’m blown away by the quality of this content! The author has clearly put a huge amount of effort into investigating and arranging the information. It’s exciting to come across an article that not only gives helpful information but also keeps the readers captivated from start to finish. Great job to her for making such a masterpiece!

  3. Hi! Do you know if they make any plugins to assist with Search Engine Optimization? I’m trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I’m not seeing very good results. If you know of any please share. Kudos!

  6. We’re a group of volunteers and opening a new scheme in our community. Your web site provided us with valuable info to paintings on. You have done an impressive task and our entire community might be grateful to you.

  8. One thing is always that one of the most common incentives for making use of your credit cards is a cash-back or maybe rebate offer. Generally, you’ll have access to 1-5 back upon various expenses. Depending on the card, you may get 1 again on most purchases, and 5 back on buying made at convenience stores, gas stations, grocery stores plus ‘member merchants’.

  10. It’s appropriate time to make some plans for the future and it’s time to be happy. I’ve learn this post and if I may I desire to suggest you few attention-grabbing issues or suggestions. Maybe you can write subsequent articles relating to this article. I wish to read even more issues approximately it!

  11. Hi there, just became alert to your blog through Google, and found that it is really informative. I?m going to watch out for brussels. I?ll be grateful if you continue this in future. Many people will be benefited from your writing. Cheers!

  35. Woah! I’m really digging the template/theme of this site. It’s simple, yet effective. A lot of times it’s very hard to get that “perfect balance” between superb usability and appearance. I must say you have done a very good job with this. In addition, the blog loads extremely quick for me on Firefox. Excellent Blog!

  45. Excellent read, I just passed this onto a friend who was doing a little research on that. And he just bought me lunch as I found it for him smile Therefore let me rephrase that: Thank you for lunch!

Leave a Reply to đòi clip người yêu cũ Cancel reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Must Read

Letters

Claiming reproductive power

Reproductive justice goes beyond healthcare – it’s about empowering individuals, especially women, to make informed decisions about their bodies, health and future without discrimination...

Kids buying death

Garbage on the move

Epaper_26-01-30 LHR

Pakistan Today
Contact us: newsroom@pakistantoday.com.pk
Facebook Instagram Twitter
Copyright © 2026. Pakistan Today. All Rights Reserved.